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Under the Boutique Hotel Concept, Independent Hotels May Now Join A Franchiser's Family

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Hotel franchisers such as Hilton and Marriott are known for its high-quality service with strict brand standards. If an independent hotel with “unique” characteristics wants to join the family and utilize a brand’s existing reservation system and marketing network, it may have to make changes and become a “standardized” hotel. Thanks to the newly-introduced boutique hotel concept, these independent hotels do not have to sacrifice anymore.

Today, seven independent hotels of the Kessler Collection, which represent upper-upscale and luxury properties with “unique” personalities, joined Marriott’s Autograph Collection and became part of many boutique hotels under the Marriott brand. Autograph is the newly-developed boutique hotel concept by Marriott. Unlike other Marriott brand, while Autograph emphasizes Marriott’s high quality, it allows each property to keep its “unique” characteristics. As a matter of fact, Marriott is not the only franchiser who has made this move.

Starwood introduced the Luxury Collection; Hyatt has Andaz brand; Wyndham developed Grand Collection; and Choice Hotels has Ascend Collection, just to name a few. Before, independent and historic hotels might have one option of joining the Leading Hotels of the World Collection or the Luxury Hotel Collection. It will be exciting to watch the future of these franchised boutique hotel brands and see how well these brands can maintain their high quality with “unique” characteristics.
References:
Hotel Online
Travel Weekly
Photoes were copied from the website of The Mansion on Forsyth Park, an Autograph Collection.
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Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 29, 2010 at 8:20 PM

    Hi Linchi,
    Thanks for the interesting info. I have both stayed at the boutique and brand name hotels before. So why do they want to go under their global system? Because of their extensive reservation system? so they can be more visible in the world market? I guess they are in financial crisis also? Love your blogs btw. Keep up your great work!

    Charles

    ReplyDelete
  2. Linchi KwokJanuary 31, 2010 at 1:10 PM

    Thank you, Dr. Adams. When I discuss central reservation center in my hotel operations class this week, I will use this example, and I will ask my students if they have read this article.

    ReplyDelete

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